Those smart people require direction and orders, and are paid as such. Should they build permanent magnet motors or induction motors? Should they use aluminum

Those smart people require direction and orders, and are paid as such. Should they build permanent magnet motors or induction motors? Should they use aluminum or steel? so on and so forth. And these decision rest with the C-Suite and ultimately the CEO, and if they make the right calls, the company succeeds, sales increase and the share prices rises, making shareholders happy. If not... And making the right call depends on the skills of the CEO, in this case both the business and engineering (yes, specifically that) skills of Elon Musk. He used them, made some bad calls, made some good calls, but over they years made enough right calls to that he was kept on as CEO for multiple years in a row, and he made everyone rich. Employees were paid, Board members were paid, he should be paid too. Don't like him? Pay his dues and fire him.